If you are browsing the Internet using Internet Explorer or your local hard drive with Windows Explorer, there is a way to quickly check if there are watermarked images on a website or in a folder.  The Digimarc Reader for Images is a free download that will enable you to read watermarks while browsing with Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer.

This is a nice feature, especially if you are looking for watermarked images and don’t want to keep Photoshop open to read the watermarks. Notice that I refer to these PC Explorers by their “formal” names as though they are two separate applications. This is because these applications are not exactly the same and why the reader software behaves slightly differently with each app.

In Internet Explorer, the reader software can read digital watermarks embedded in the following file formats BMP, JPG, TIFF and PNG.

 

In Windows Explorer, the software can read the same file formats and PSD (Photoshop native) as well.
The “D” symbol appears in the lower left of an image in both Internet and Windows Explorer to let you know a digital watermark was found.

In Internet Explorer click the “D” to view the image owner information and in Windows Explorer right click on the image with the “D” and “Read Digimarc Watermark” to perform the same task.

 
Additionally in Internet Explorer, you can have the Digimarc toolbar displayed and it can let you know if a watermark was found anywhere on the page you are viewing.

A couple of quick notes:

One trick that I use the reader for is to quickly check a batch of images that have been saved as JPEG. I launch Windows Explorer and open the folder where I batch embedded a large number of JPEG images and wait for the “D” to appear on the image icons.  This is much quicker than opening a few hundred JPEG images and reading them in Photoshop.

Also, for those of you using Internet Explorer 8.0 and who read system requirements:

• Windows Vista SP1, Internet Explorer 7
• Windows XP SP3, Internet Explorer 6 and 7

I have the current service packs (SP) on my XP PC and used Internet Explorer 8 with the Reader for Images software to create all of the screenshots.  I can’t guarantee flawless performance from Internet Explorer 8, but I’ve not had any problems. If you do have problems with Internet Explorer 8, uninstall it and check back, updates are always in the works.